It’s been quite some time since we’ve looked at any new phones coming out of Kyocera. Last year, we saw the company take a shot at an unusual design with the dual-screen Echo, but after that handset failed to catch-on, Kyocera started to drift off our radar. In the time since, we’ve seen it release the low-end Milano, and wondered when the company might have something more to show us. We’re still waiting for another phone that’s as interesting as the Echo, but in the meantime Kyocera has a new pair of Ice Cream Sandwich smartphones to reveal, the water-resistant Hydro and the Rise with its QWERTY keyboard.

Despite the inclusion of Android 4.0, these are both pretty low-end devices, though less-so than the Milano. Each has a single-core 1GHz processor, 3.5-inch HVGA screen, 512MB of RAM, and a 3.2-megapixel camera. Both phones still feature good-old Android capacitive buttons, even with ICS out-of-the-box.

The Hydro is your standard slate, but its water-resistance rating gives the phone thirty minutes to live when dropped in up to a meter of water. The Rise sticks with the same keyboard layout as the Milano, but cleans things up for a more professional look.

With CDMA radios but without LTE, we’re guessing these two will end up on the likes of Virgin or Boost; no word on when that might be, or exactly what these two will cost, but they’re almost assured to be quite affordable.

Source: Kyocera 1, 2

Via: phoneArena